Lot Essay
This work is sold with a photo-certificate from Robert Descharnes.
Salvador Dalí was fascinated by Hollywood, and he visited it for the first time in 1937. For Dalí, the Marx brothers and Walt Disney were the greatest american surrealists, and he collaborated with both of them on two film projects which were never realised.
The present drawing seems to be part of Disney's project, initiated in 1945. Walt Disney admired Dalí's extraordinary skills as a draughtsman and he was particularly impressed by the Spanish artist's inexhaustible imagination. This Composition au cygne et à l'éléphant was probably inspired from an earlier work by Dalí entitled Swans reflecting Elephants of 1937 (Private collection; fig. 1)
(fig. 1) Salvador Dalí, Swans reflecting Elephants, 1937. Private collection; © Salvador Dalí, Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation and DACS, London, 2007.
Salvador Dalí was fascinated by Hollywood, and he visited it for the first time in 1937. For Dalí, the Marx brothers and Walt Disney were the greatest american surrealists, and he collaborated with both of them on two film projects which were never realised.
The present drawing seems to be part of Disney's project, initiated in 1945. Walt Disney admired Dalí's extraordinary skills as a draughtsman and he was particularly impressed by the Spanish artist's inexhaustible imagination. This Composition au cygne et à l'éléphant was probably inspired from an earlier work by Dalí entitled Swans reflecting Elephants of 1937 (Private collection; fig. 1)
(fig. 1) Salvador Dalí, Swans reflecting Elephants, 1937. Private collection; © Salvador Dalí, Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation and DACS, London, 2007.